This week, two very similar rape cases from Uttar Pradesh made the headlines. The rapes were similar — both involved multiple perpetrators, both victims were Dalits, and both the victims passed away. Yet how members of the media reported the two cases couldn’t have been more different.
Far left propagandist Faye D’Souza reported on both cases on her Instagram page. Since parting ways with Mirror Now, Faye D’Souza has developed a sizable following on Instagram. “The 19-year old Dalit girl who was allegedly gangraped by 4 upper caste men in Hathras in UP, died of her injuries in Delhi today,” she posted about the Hathras case. D’Souza chose to prominently mention how the rapists were “four upper caste men,” implying that they were Hindu.
Faye D’Souza also reported on the Balrampur rape case a day later. “A 22-year-old Dalit college student was raped and brutalised in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh today, she died of her injuries,” she wrote. She added three more paragraphs on the details of the grisly crime, but left out a crucial detail — the identity of the rapists.
As multiple other outlets reported, the rapists in the Balrampur case were two men named Shahid and Sahil. But Faye D’Souza chose to hide the identity of the rapists in her report.
It’s strange why a journalist would prominently mention the religion of the accused in one report, while hide it in the other. Any serious journalist would want to have similar standards: either you mention the identities of the rapists in both cases, or you hide them in both. But for someone to claim to be a journalist and then selectively reveal the identities of the accused would lead one to believe that they aren’t journalists at all — they’re merely opportunists using the cover of news to push their political and cultural agendas.
